


We Sing in The K-Science Lab

by MaliciaStarling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pacific Rim (2013), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Jane-centric, K-Science, Tattoos, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciaStarling/pseuds/MaliciaStarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane hates being separated from her equipment, so she ends up with Newt and Hermann.  This is their tale of science, tattoos, bonding and kaijus!</p><p>Be forewarned there is some bloody tattoo cleaning and mentions of mild kaiju blue poisoning.  Written for a prompt at fy-dr-janefoster  "Jane + Newt & Hermann" requested Omnicat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Sing in The K-Science Lab

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, am only borrowing Pacific Rim and Marvel characters. I use a song by Bach that I learned in choir so in my head it was always meant to sound like a piece for several voices and the K-science bros are German so I dunno it just sorta came together. 
> 
> Completely unbeta'd.

 

Official PPDC policy states that, **"Where ever possible we shall minimize language differences."**

All this means is in the early years they tried to employ as few interpreters as possible and really that was fine because money was always tight, and separating according to native language was how little cultural differences would be avoided.

Problem was Jane Foster was a polyglot (meaning she'd studied Japanese, Hebrew and French, her Grandmother had taught her some Yiddish) and did NOT like the idea of her designs, her research and her data being separated from her just because you know her first language was American English. It was an annoying technicality. "No please just listen, I'll learn German I'm really good with languages how hard can it be?"

But as Darcy trailed after her trying to tell her she was wasting time arguing with a secretary when they should just you know have Tony (Pepper would be the one doing it) take care of the bureaucratic mess of reuniting Jane with her equipment.  When Jane finally listened they gave up and told Pepper that Jane was going to get to that Shatterdome come hell or kaiju damnit, it left Pepper a time limit to work her magic and technically... Jane was breaking into Drs Geiszler and Gottlieb's lab.  In the middle of the night. But Jane had jet lag it was already morning for her (since she was coming from NYC).

"Excuse you Miss I think you're in the wrong lab,"  Hermann's cane had announced him well before he spoke up. And really he was being very polite considering there was a small woman perched on his desk reading his notes and writing down her own.

"You didn't have to send out the equipment for fine-tuning its really simple, I can show you how if you have it brought back." Jane still hadn't looked up from her reading and scribbling, so Hermann cleared his throat and tapped his cane.  Jane looked up and then two and two made four. Oh. Right fine-tuning that had to be done _inside_ the probe which was difficult for him to do. "But since I'm here now I'll just go get it and you can just tell me where it is."  she smiled but it was a small bashful thing and Hermann was glad she had figured it out and said nothing rude. 

"Well I suppose Dr. Geiszler might be availed upon to undertake such a mission."  Newt who was barely walking only answered that he was Newt and he didn't care how pretty the girl was no one needed to call him Doctor. So even though technically Jane wasn't supposed to be there, if Hermann liked her then as far as Newt was concerned she belonged there.  

 

By the time the official word came down from the PPDC officials that well this one time an exception had been made he found the three scientists having a lively debate about what Newt should get as his next tattoo.  Jane thought it should be the new constellation dubbed Nemesis because that's where they suspected the kaiju were from.  Hermann detested the thought of needles and still didn't think he actually needed one. They were all interrupted by the news that Jane was now officially allowed into their lab, a letter was hand delivered to each of the scientists.

"Now that you're official you HAVE to come see me get my tattoo," Newt was very nice and Jane very much did not want to yell at him because he handled kaiju specimens and the three now shared a refrigerator.

And then there was the dark red emergency lights blinking and dread filled them all as they could hear the distant sounds of a klaxxon. They had work to do.

Between all the new data coming into LOCCENT they worked tirelessly through the night as Cherno Alpha approached the Breach to drop in the new probe Jane had designed, Newt had programmed and Newt...  Well he was busy watching the feed and saw the moment Yamarashi destroyed the _RMS Queen Mary_ and then watching the news helplessly.  The death toll was now in the hundreds and Newt was sick with the sight of what looked like tiny figures flailing in the kaiju-blue tinged water. He knew the biology of a normal human could not withstand kaiju blue that close.  The land missiles launched at lumbering Yamarashi would only anger it further but they had to try something because 3 million people lived in Los Angeles.  He wanted to curl up in a little ball and weep at the helplessness but instead he clutched the touch pad and started examining the still images.  Marking up the kaiju’s image making no more than an educated guesswork of all the spots on his alien anatomy but he sent the most vital spots to the Becket brothers via LOCCENT.   

The fight, once G- Danger arrived, spared many more millions of lives than those who perished before its arrival and even though Newt had tried to guess at Yamarashi’s vulnerabilities the truth was he needed data.  So he packed up and went to the disaster area with the rest of the recovery crews.

Jane’s probe sunk down into the Breach, she and Hermann held their breath as data filled their screens and then that’s when she saw it. The portal, the structure of which the probe would be examining and maybe just maybe they’d catch a glimpse of the kaiju homeworld, what everyone was calling the Anteverse.

But no, just then static interfered with their data stream and Cherno Alpha reported that they detected seismographic activity and were ordered by the PPDC to retreat.  

 

The glimpse of the anteverse, the kaijus section of sky, and all the data might still be collected but the feed was dead, who knew when another jaeger could be dispatched to dislodge the probe.

The aftermath of Yamarashi’s attack was fueled with industrial strength coffee and disgusting protein rations and maybe a few stimulants as well.  Newt was out in the field working with the recovery crews as he collected samples but no one cared about the carcass and he couldn’t get any help doing the stuff that was considered “dangerous.” And really now so what if he had little kaiju blue poisoning? So did a lot of fish and wildlife at the moment.  His argument was not found to be valid (Newt could concede he sounded a bit hysterical but this research was vital) so he was barred from the site when search and rescue crews withdrew and physically removed from the area.

In a way none of the scientists ever felt the way the Beckets did.  They never got bothered by reporters but most importantly they felt suffocated by the immensity of the problem in a way that **not** could be relieved by a triumph over the defeated Yamarashi like the Beckets were currently enjoying.  

 

“How did it go?” asked Jane, for lack of anything else to say when Newt returned, sick to his stomach from the kaiju blue inhalations.  He responded by throwing up on her boots.  Hermann shrieked and grew green around the gills at the sight and Jane hushed him and just grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator, making Newt drink it.

“Its bad like, really epically bad I was so, so wrong, about everything, Yamarashi is nothing like the others.” Jane grabbed him a bucket and Newt heaved again. She dragged him into the little bathroom and made Hermann go grab him some clean clothes and her some new shoes.  

Newt was sick from inhalations but he was also just heartsick.  He took to watching the footage obsessively and found an ex-football coach/turned ranger trainer who said that a good motion capture camera work like they used to use for CGI in films would be the only way he’d be able to even predict a fight if kaijus kept coming up that were so different.  Anything Newt might be learning in the aftermath would be void if the next was different.

 

For a while they all felt defeated but as they worked things got better.  Jane’s probe had failed to penetrate the Breach, but now they knew something about how the thing opened and closed.  It seemed to have its own mechanical systems  Hermann was fascinated by the data they were getting and between the two they were spinning theoretical ideas like other people discussed their favorite desserts.

 

Newt came in dejected from the conference call with different experts in zoology and photography.  There was no way short of attacking the damn kaiju with tiny markers to study and analyze quickly enough to be of any real benefit during an attack, analysis was not going to work that quickly and the money would have been wasted if they did attempt it, screamed the politicians who learned of the exploratory committee.

It didn’t make sense with nearly half a dozen kaiju attacks that none of them looked the same, and he had now watched the same footage over and over nearly a hundred times.  Someone had gif’d it on tumblr and he’d watched that too.  Trying to move like the Kaiju and failing utterly.

Finally, Jane and Hermann noticed how quiet Newt had become, mostly because he was just drawing slowly on their extra chalkboard.  

 

“I know what it looks like now, and _now_ I know what all of his parts do, how he fights, why he fights like that...” Newt muttered, “But I didn’t know then and there’s no way to predict its weaknesses or be able to help anyone in the future if the next one is different.”

 

“Well I know now that the Breach is impenetrable because its got shielding AND that the portal is built into the earth’s mantle, so we know how old the damn thing is, well according to the geologists anyway.  They’re having a field day with that so at least my probe wasn’t completely useless.”

 

“And I believe I may be able to unravel some of the data into an algorithm for the approximate date of their next attack.  Especially if the geologists are right and the seismography was even half accurate before now with Jane’s probe wedged in the Breach to render new data I should be able to eventually predict the day and hour of each attack.”

“So we’re… winning?” Newt said genuinely bewildered.

“Well we have lots of data to sift through.”

“Yes Newt we’re winning.  I think this calls for a celebration!”  Darcy strode arm in arm with a young recruit by the name of Chuck.  “I’m babysitting though no alcohol for us!”

The young recruit pouted and began to protest until Miss Mori was summoned to join them.  At some point in the evening when the young kids were falling asleep Darcy flagged down a cab and dumped them in and left the three scientists on the sidewalk too full of coffee to think of sleeping at 2200.

 

“They’ll be in their own jaegers soon you know.”  Newt was still heartbroken over his inability to do anything substantial during Yamarashi’s attack. “They’re the best in their class.”

 

“That’s why we will design better technology to protect them.” Hermann said sternly.  Newt took a swig of his beer and his grimace fooled no one, he was just as sad now as he had been that night he’d returned from Yamarashi’s boneyard.

 

“I think I know what tattoo I want. Its going to be the constellation Orion.”

“Hunter, son of Poseidon. Fitting,” Hermann gives a slight inclination of the head.  “I suppose that I could understand.”

“Dude when I wanted a tattoo a few months ago you said I didn’t need anymore!”

“That’s because you wanted a tattoo of the PPDC’s emblem!”

“Because we’re part of the human resistance!”

“Come on you two lets just get mine before my buzz wears off.”  Jane was prepared with Darcy’s recommended tattoo artist and the constellation picture for her shoulder.

 

Once at the tattoo shop and under the light Newt was nervously inspecting his phone.  “Would you stop fidgeting I’m the one getting the tattoo Newt!”  Jane couldn’t see what he was doing because he was pacing behind her but Hermann was holding her hand sitting accross from her just sitting their with a grim expression.

 

“I know what I’m gonna get!” was all he’d say and he laid down for the tattoo artist who was going to work on him.

 

They didn’t talk about the tattoo, didn’t doubt him, didn’t question him.  Just got him lotion, some ice and fresh bandages on the way back to the Shatterdome.  The three of them were a little leery of what people were going to say.

 

The first time Jane peels back the bandage, Newt is munching on one of Hermann’s pain pills.  The whole thing was a bloody mess, and it was going to be a bitch to clean up but Newt had been stubborn about getting at least half the coloring done the same day.  

 

Hermann hated the smell of blood, he could still not understand the point of such a garish ordeal intentionally inflicted on oneself. Still he was in awe of the astrophysicist  “How did you learn to do that?”

“Had a boyfriend who was a doctor, I met him in medical school, only useful thing out of that relationship is that I know how to do excellent first aid since he practiced on me.”

Newt squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself not to cry.  

“Bist du bei mir,” she sang softly, “come on, sing with me.”

Newt couldn’t sing without crying so he hummed along.

“geh ich mit Freuden,” Hermann pulled up a chair and handed Jane Q-tips with water to clean up the dried blood.

The process was slow and the song had to be repeated twice before she was done. The skin looked angry and shiny red where it should have been pale white.  But Yamarashi was a thing of beauty.

Jane took off her flannel shirt so she was just in her racerback sports, “your turn,” she nodded to Newt.  

Her tattoo was just dots with purple lines connecting them.  But it spanned her entire shoulder blade and she had also bled.  Newts’ hands were unsure so she kept singing and Hermann took the Q-tip and gently cleaned away the area.

“es drückten deine schönen Hände

mir die getreuen Augen zu!”

**Author's Note:**

> here’s a link to the song: [x](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9DnMpCsnBY)
> 
> here’s a link to the song’s meaning:
> 
>  
> 
> [x](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bist_du_bei_mir)
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll be cleaning up and posting the rest of the fic soon! (There’s more than 2k words right now)
> 
> Natalie Portman's wikipedia entry mentions she studied German and so since my headcanon has always been that Jane is Jewish (and learned Yiddish as a child) adjusting my headcanon for her knowing this very popular song didn't seem hard.


End file.
